Director Paul Feig has proved himself to be the preeminent purveyor of the finest high-camp trash one can find at the movie theater these days — and that’s a compliment. If Feig is serving up the trash, then call me a raccoon, because I’m ready to dive in.

Feig’s special sauce when it comes to these soapy, female-driven thrillers like “A Simple Favor,” and now “The Housemaid,” adapted by Rebecca Sonnenshine from a “BookTok” sensation by Freida McFadden, is clearly his comedy background. Feig understands exactly the tone and tropes to deploy here, and you can feel his knowing winks and nudges to the audience with every loaded glance, stray graze or wandering camera movement. It’s as if he’s saying, to us, and all the tipsy ladies in the audience, “check this out — LOL right?” LOL indeed, Mr. Feig, LOL.

“The Housemaid” is an erotic crime thriller that plays off silly sexual stereotypes and fantasies like the naughty maid and then flips them on their head. In the opening scene, the drably dressed, bespectacled Millie (Sydney Sweeney) interviews for a live-in maid position with the warm and friendly wife and mother Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) in her gorgeously appointed Long Island mansion designed by her wealthy husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar).

But all is not what it seems on the surface, for either applicant or employer. Both are hiding dark secrets, but Nina hires Millie nevertheless, and Millie, without any other options, gratefully accepts.

When Millie moves into the maid’s quarters in the attic, she discovers that the Winchester home isn’t as picture-perfect as it seemed. Little things are off: she can’t open her window, the groundskeeper Enzo (Michele Morrone) glowers at her constantly, items go missing, and CeCe (Indiana Elle), Nina’s daughter, is exceedingly cold.

Then there are the big things that are off, like Nina’s wild mood swings, requests that Nina then claims she never made, and the vicious gossip about her mental health among the other Stepford wives. Millie realizes she’s in over her head with Mrs. Winchester, but her saving grace is the warm and handsome Mr. Winchester. Is that where this is going? Of course it is, we all happily groan together.

“The Housemaid” is like “Gaslight” meets “Jane Eyre,” with a dash of “Rebecca,” with all the various roles lightly scrambled, and a much sexier, nastier streak than any of those mannered mindbenders. Feig stylishly waltzes us through this steamy, twisty mystery with ease, but not necessarily sophistication — this is the kind of frothy entertainment that you can still enjoyably comprehend after a glass or two, which in fact might enhance the experience.

But it doesn’t work without an actor of Seyfried’s caliber, who can summon unpredictable mayhem from her fingertips, or without Sweeney, who works best in a register somewhere between ditzy blonde and tough little scrapper. Both actors exude an element of the unhinged that simmers right below the doe-eyed blond surface, and we know we need to be a little (or a lot) afraid of these women. The film also doesn’t work without a heartthrob like Sklenar, as we need to fall in lust with his gorgeous exterior and intoxicatingly cuddly aura for this all to make sense.

There’s not much more to divulge without giving it all away, but prepare to titter, gasp, scream and cheer for this juicy slice of indulgent women’s entertainment. Go on, you deserve a little treat this holiday season.

‘The Housemaid’

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong/bloody violent content, sexual assault, sexual content, nudity and language)

Running time: 2:11

How to watch: In theaters on Friday, Dec. 19

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Federal prosecutors on Thursday filed a new round of fraud charges against providers of Medicaid-funded programs administered by the state of Minnesota — and gave yet another hint at the scale of theft taking place under the watch of state agencies.

At a news conference announcing charges against six individuals who allegedly defrauded the state of more than $10 million in various schemes, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said he believed “a significant amount” of the $18 billion paid out by 14 “high–risk” Medicaid-funded programs since 2018 was lost to fraud — possibly half or more.

“Fraud is not small. It isn’t isolated. The magnitude cannot be overstated,” he said. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes; it’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud.”

New charges filed Thursday included cases against one person accused of defrauding state autism services and five more individuals tied to the Housing Stabilization Services program, which helped people with disabilities and addiction issues at risk of homelessness pay for housing. Seven were charged in September.

‘Fraud tourism’

Thompson described one of the new housing stabilization cases as an instance of “fraud tourism,” where two defendants from Philadelphia who had no connections to Minnesota were drawn to the program after hearing it was “easy money.”

Anthony Waddell Jefferson, 37, and Lester Brown,53, established a business in Minnesota to collect Medicaid payments from the Department of Human Services, though neither lived in the state, according to federal prosecutors. Both are accused of collecting $3.5 million for services never provided and are charged with wire fraud.

The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s office also announced new wire fraud charges against Hassan Ahmed Hussein, 28, and Ahmed Abdirashid Mohamed, 27. The pair allegedly claimed $750,000 for services through their company, Pristine Health, LLC, but only used a fraction for services, prosecutors allege.

Hussein and Mohamed are accused of using the money to finance their travels to London, Sydney, Dubai, Istanbul and several locations in Saudi Arabia.

Kaamil Omar Sallah, 26, was charged with wire fraud for allegedly making more than $1.4 million in fraudulent claims through his company SafeLodgings, $1.3 million of which he received between March 2023 and August 2025.

Sallah used some of the money to obtain $150,000 in cryptocurrency. Sallah fled the country in November after being served a subpoena for his company records by a grand jury, Thompson said.

Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, age 27, is accused of stealing through the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention benefit, a program meant to support people under 21 with autism.

Yussuf, of St. Cloud, is accused of using his company, Star Autism Center, to submit millions in inflated and fraudulent claims for services never provided.

Cash kickback payments

Federal prosecutors allege that Yussuf and partners would recruit children and seek out autism diagnoses and approach parents with offers of cash kickback payments for enrolling their children in the program.

In all, Star Autism claimed more than $6 million. Prosecutors allege Yussuf used $100,000 to purchase a Freightliner semi-truck and sent $200,000 to Kenya.

The first autism services defendant, Asha Farhan Hassan, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud on Thursday for her role in a $14 million fraud scheme where she received $465,000.

Prosecutors also announced an investigation into a new fraud scheme. On Thursday morning, authorities served a search warrant on Ultimate Home Health Services, a Bloomington-based provider of “Integrated Community Services.”

The Medicaid-funded program helps people with disabilities live in a home rather than an assisted living facility, and it’s one of the 14 the state has identified as “high-risk.”

‘Explosive growth’

Ultimate Home Health Services claimed more than $1.1 million in reimbursements between June 2024 and August 2025 and claimed services for 13 clients, including multiple clients who did not get services, according to the warrant.

One of the clients was a person with “severe mental illness” who was found dead in the apartment, according to the warrant. Ultimate Home Health claimed it was providing 12 hours of service a day, though the client’s mother, who visited him once a week, said that was not true, the warrant said.

Integrated Community Services has seen “explosive growth” since it started in 2021, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. When the program began in 2021, it paid out $4.6 million. By 2024, it paid out $170 million in just one year. The state has paid out more than $400 million in Medicaid reimbursements since the program started, according to prosecutors.

The pattern resembles other Medicaid-funded state programs that have seen significant fraud.

For instance, Housing Stabilization Services was projected to cost $2.6 million a year when it started. By 2024, it was paying out more than $105 million. A dozen now face federal charges in connection with fraud in that program, and more charges are likely to come.

Thompson said he believed the scale and type of fraud occurring in Minnesota was unique, and that it had been “allowed to go on far too long,” and that the state had not done a good job of overseeing Medicaid programs.

“There’s lots of levels of responsibility. There’s criminal culpability, obviously and then there’s other accountability,” he said. “I think all of us, as a state, have to grapple with that and that’s not just prosecutors and law enforcement agents but regulators and politicians and news media, community leaders … I think that process, that conversation is starting to happen.”

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By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House approved legislation Thursday aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for new energy and infrastructure projects and limiting judicial review.

The bill, dubbed the SPEED Act, would enact the most significant change in decades to the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law that requires federal agencies to consider a project’s possible environmental impacts before it is approved.

The bill was approved, 221-196, and now goes to the Senate.

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Republicans and many Democrats believe the 55-year-old law has become mired in red tape that routinely results in years-long delays for major projects. The law requires detailed analysis for major projects and allows for public comments before approvals are issued. A recent study found that environmental reviews total hundreds of pages and take nearly five years to complete.

The House bill would place statutory limits on environmental reviews, broaden the scope of actions that don’t require review and set clear deadlines. It also limits who can bring legal challenges and legal remedies that courts can impose.

“The SPEED Act is a focused, bipartisan effort to restore common sense and accountability to federal permitting,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Arkansas, the bill’s chief sponsor.

While NEPA was passed “with the best of intentions,” it has become unwieldly in the decades since, said Westerman, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee and has long pushed for permitting reform.

“Unfortunately, what was meant to facilitate responsible development has been twisted into a bureaucratic bottleneck that delays investments in the infrastructure and technologies that make our country run,” Westerman said Thursday on the House floor.

Democrats agreed that the permitting process has become unwieldy, but said the House bill does not address the real causes of delay and undercuts public input and participation while overly restricting judicial review.

“The SPEED Act treats environmental reviews as a nuisance rather than a tool to prevent costly, harmful mistakes,” said California Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the Natural Resources panel.

“Weakening environmental review won’t fix permitting challenges (and) won’t help us build the clean energy future that we need,” Huffman said. “Gutting NEPA only invites more risk, more mistakes, more litigation, more damage to communities that already face too many environmental burdens.”

Huffman and other Democrats also complained that the bill could harm wind and solar projects that are being shut down by the Trump administration. A last-minute change this week allows the administration to continue to block some offshore wind projects, bending to demands by conservatives who oppose offshore wind.

The American Clean Power Association, which represents wind developers, pulled its support for the bill because of the changes, which were demanded by Republican Reps. Andy Harris of Maryland and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey.

The GOP amendment “fundamentally changed legislation that represented genuine bipartisan progress on permitting reform,” said Jason Grumet, the group’s CEO. “It’s disappointing that a partisan amendment …. has now jeopardized that progress, turning what should have been a win for American energy into another missed opportunity.”

Harris, who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus, defended the change, which he said “will protect legal actions the Trump administration has taken thus far to combat the Biden offshore wind agenda,” including a project in Maryland that the administration has moved to block.

Westerman called the change minor and said that without it, “we probably would not have gotten permitting reform done.”

Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, the bill’s co-sponsor, said lawmakers from both parties have long agreed that “America’s broken permitting system is delaying investments in the basics we need — energy, transportation and housing.

Support for the measure “gives me hope that Congress is finally ready to take the win” on permitting reform, Golden said.

House approval of the permitting measure shifts focus to the Senate, where a broader deal that includes changes to the Clean Water Act to facilitate pipeline projects and transmission lines is being considered.

Democrats, including Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, also are pursuing legislation to make it harder for Trump to cancel permits for clean-energy projects.

By KIMBERLEE KRUESI, Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — It’s been nearly a week since someone killed two students and wounded nine others inside a Brown University classroom before fleeing, yet investigators on Thursday appeared to still not know the attacker’s name.

There have been other high-profile attacks in which it took days or longer to make an arrest or find those responsible, including in the brazen New York City sidewalk killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO last year, which took five days.

But frustration is mounting in Providence that the person behind Saturday’s attack, which killed two students and wounded nine others, managed to get away and that a clear image of their face has yet to emerge.

“There’s no discouragement among people who understand that not every case can be solved quickly,” the state attorney general, Peter Neronha, said at a news conference Wednesday.

How is the investigation going?

Authorities have scoured the area for evidence and pleaded with the public to check any phone or security footage they might have from the week before the attack, believing the shooter might have cased the scene ahead of time. But they have given no sense that they’re close to catching the shooter.

Investigators have released several videos from the hours and minutes before and after the shooting that show a person who, according to police, matches witnesses’ description of the shooter. In the clips, the person is standing, walking and even running along streets just off campus, but always with a mask on or their head turned.

Although Brown officials say there are 1,200 cameras on campus, the attack happened in an older part of the engineering building that has few, if any cameras. And investigators believe the shooter entered and left through a door that faces a residential street bordering campus, which might explain why the cameras Brown does have didn’t capture footage of the person.

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said Wednesday that the city is doing “everything possible” to keep residents safe. However, he acknowledged that it is “a scary time in the city” and that families likely were having tough conversations about whether to stay in town over the holidays.

“We are doing everything we can to reassure folks, to provide comfort, and that is the best answer I can give to that difficult question,” Smiley said when asked if the city was safe.

Although it’s not unheard of for someone to disappear after carrying out such a high-profile shooting, it is rare.

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What can be learned from past investigations?

In such targeted and highly public attacks, the shooters typically kill themselves or are killed or arrested by police, said Katherine Schweit, a retired FBI agent and expert on mass shootings. When they do get away, searches can take time.

“The best they can do is what they do now, which is continue to press together all of the facts they have as fast as they can,” Schweit said. “And, really, the best hope for solutions is going to come from the public.”

In the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, it took investigators four days to catch up to the two brothers who carried it out. In a 2023 case, Army reservist Robert Card was found dead of an apparent suicide two days after he killed 18 people and wounded 13 others in Lewiston, Maine.

The man accused of killing conservative political figure Charlie Kirk in September turned himself in about a day and a half after the attack on Utah Valley University’s campus. And Luigi Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan last year, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.

Felipe Rodriguez, a retired New York police detective sergeant and adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said it’s clear that shooters are learning from others who were caught.

“Most of the time an active shooter is going to go in, and he’s going to try to commit what we call maximum carnage, maximum damage,” Rodriguez said. “And at this point, they’re actually trying to get away. And they’re actually evading police with an effective methodology, which I haven’t seen before.”

Investigators have described the person they are seeking as about 5 feet, 8 inches tall and stocky. The attacker’s motives remain a mystery, but authorities said Wednesday that none of the evidence suggests a specific person was being targeted.

Meanwhile, Boston-area police are investigating the shooting death of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor earlier this week. Nuno F.G. Loureiro was attacked at his home Monday, and no one has been arrested or named as a suspect. The FBI said it had no reason to think his killing was linked to the Brown attack.

Associated Press reporters Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Hallie Golden in Seattle, contributed.